The Bonfires of Social Enterprise with Romy of Gingras Global | Social Enterprise | Entrepreneurship in Detroit

We had some fun jumping over to the west coast to talk with Sheri Lozano of Link2Lift. Sheri discusses her innovative and collaborative idea to use unused spaces for lifting others.

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Welcome to episode 99 of the Bonfires of Social Enterprise! Wow-wee, almost at 100. Thanks for your loyal support over all of these past episodes! Oh, by the way, this is Romy, and we had some fun jumping over to the west coast to talk with Sheri Lozano of Link2Lift. Sheri discusses her innovative and collaborative idea to use unused spaces in lifting ways. Be sure to stay until the end for a great song from a Detroit artist!

Now, first, we have to hear what Natalie has come up with for the fun fuel on this episode.

I’m Natalie Hazen and I am bringing you this episode’s Fun Fuel.

Coworking is everywhere. What is coworking you ask? It is a work trend bringing together professionals from across all industries to form inter-connected communities. According to the website, Mindspace, the concept of a coworking space started in 1995 Berlin with 17 computer enthusiasts got together in a facility to create a space where people with an interest in computers could gather to collaborate and work in an open environment.

Fast track to 1999 New York City and 42 West 24 opened to offer a work environment with flexible membership options for teams and individuals seeking a workspace. The difference here was that there seldom were any organized community events.

In 2005, Brad Neuberg from San Francisco launched the first official co-working space originally referred to as a “9 to 5 group.” It was a was not a huge hit at first as no one showed up for the first month, but soon interest sparked and coworking took off.

Coworking leads to great collaboration. When I hear the word collaboration, my mind goes to the lyrics of Vanilla Ice’s 1990 release of Ice Ice Baby. I hear collaboration and I then start singing: stop, collaborate and listen and then goes on to say, “if there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it.” Makes me smile every time.

Let’s jump on over to see who Romy is collaborating with on in this episode and what problem they are solving.

Okay, I absolutely love Natalie’s fun fuels! That was so interesting about co-working spaces! And, now I have the Vanilla Ice song in my head! Ha Ha. I have to look that up next! What a perfect lead into a collaboration that Sheri Lozano has tackled with Link2Lift. Let’s drop in on my conversation with Sheri…

Romy: Sheri, why don't you give us the background about what Link2Lift is?

Sheri: Link2Lift is a company that we developed in response to underutilized space. It seems like we've had a ton of buildings that are left unused, and we've developed a process where we can create co-working communities but with a purpose.

Voice: Let's talk about how you got inspired first just to get everyone caught up to what originally lit your fire if you will.

Sheri: You know, it's interesting because I never intended to develop a business. It was more a response to an experience that I had as a volunteer going back and forth to international ... as a volunteer doing international work with communities and then coming back to America, which is so rich, and realizing that we have needs here. And how come with all of the wealth that we have in our own county, we still have people in need?

And so, I just started to be a little curious, and we talk about collaboration, that we have resources, and are we really collaborating? Are we really using our resources well to help our communities that are in the minor, and it was amazing to me that I could go into a Third World country under-resourced with 25 people from the U.S. I've never met before and go into a community where I didn't speak the language, and we could somehow see 700 patients a day. Or we could see high volume, and we could work together.

So, in America, as I started to research this, it was more just out of curiosity. What I found was amazing. There's a lot of people that want to do a lot of great things, but I wasn't happy with the way I saw collaboration working, and I just thought, "We could do better."

Romy: And, Sheri, what did you find some of the main key barriers or maybe just all out fail points that were reoccurring from what you were observing? Why it wasn't working?

Sheri: Yeah, what was interesting, the pain points usually were really out of people wanting to do good. It wasn't a matter of people not wanting to spend their money or give or people not having heart to do well. It was truly just a lot of repeated work, a lot of overlap, a lot of people not realizing that there is something much like their great idea just down the street or next door.

I did this kind of boots on the ground. I decided I ... of course, attended conferences and listened to think partners, but I also decided to do just boots on the ground. And by doing boots on the ground, I could walk with each different sector with channels of influence and see what they were experiencing, and then, I would take copious notes.

So, I could walk with the family who was being cared for. I could walk with the city official. I could walk with the faith community and an investor and take notes, and what I noticed was that there was a lot of duplicate effort, and I felt like that was the one takeaway. I have to be a part of solving this problem, the duplicate effort.

Romy: You hit on a lot of points. It was the faith community, perhaps the government or civic, and then, the beneficiary. It might be a family or a person, and then, what else did you say in there because the faith community, government, and maybe the family or social mission beneficiary and ...

Sheri: And the non-profit [crosstalk].

Romy: And the non-profit, okay. Okay, yeah. So, you've got this discovery because I think that a lot of us acknowledge that that is happening. How did the different groups respond when you started to highlight some of this overlap? Were they defensive, or were they openly looking for a solution?

Sheri: That's a good question. I think it comes with a mixed response because a lot of people, I'm sure, felt the same thing. This was not a new revelation to them, but they're weary, right?

Romy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sheri: It's like, how do you make time to collaborate well? So the good thing was coming in as a neutral convener, coming in with the heart that I just want to help make this better, and I wasn't trying to change the identity of each of the organizations and what they have to bring or even how they want to do it.

I was just trying to find where are the common points so that we can really reduce overhead. We can reduce duplicate efforts and increase our impact, and people responded really well to that.

Romy: Yeah, I bet. Weary, I feel is an operative word there. You can see a solution, but when you're just so tired, and you're just trying to get to that very next step, changing it even for the better sometimes can feel overwhelming, you know?

Sheri: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Romy: Yeah. We do have a lot of ...

Sheri: And the good thing is, at that-

Romy: Oh, I'm sorry. I talked over you by accident. Go ahead.

Sheri: That's okay. The good thing is at that point; you have to keep in mind that I was still on my curious journey. So, at that point, I wasn't coming in as a business, I wasn't, or even a non-profit or a program. I was coming in asking questions.

So, it seemed like for the first time, maybe why I gained some favor in the research was because I really was curious. I did not come with answers. I came to create a conversation, and I think that was really refreshing for the people who at least I spoke with.

Romy: Yeah. And then now, it's fully turned in to a physical space as of last week, right, June of 2018, right?

Sheri: Link2Lift?

Romy: Yes.

Sheri: Okay, well, so what I do is my client has physical space, so in this curious journey, what I realized was space played a role in collaboration. All these people who had weary work and were working in isolation, many times when you get them in the same room, they're more than happy to work together.

So, when I identified space played a role in collaboration, and yet almost every time I had a meeting, I was meeting in these big buildings that were empty, and it just ... I found irony in it. So, yeah, we turned the idea, all the research from 2013 to two thousand ... really '15, '16. I turned it into, "Okay, how can we repurpose tools that are right at our fingertips?"

A lot of these people have access to buildings, and co-working is not a new idea, but what if we applied co-working a little more intentionally and either the client as a business person who would like to build an accelerator or use technology to your advantage. But what if we dedicate a tenth of that to this non-profit collaboration?

And so, in doing so, I've been able to run this model of how we can do that in almost any space, and it seems to be catching on. You're right. Last week, we opened the first center that completely went through all four stages of our company, and it's the Palau LinkCenter in Portland, Oregon.

And what's fantastic about it is it's a co-working space but with a purpose, and so, these tenant partners, they have their own identity. They have their own organization, and yet, they have intentional time where they will connect with one another, do strategic planning.

The co-working space, the Palau LinkCenter will become a strategic asset. It's almost like I have to be there at least once or twice a week, or I'm going to miss something. I would say that would be the element that's a little bit different than the trend-on co-working style, which is great. But Link2Lift, we're committed toward a little bit more intentional sense of community and purpose in how the workflow is in the space.

Romy: And for just as a side note, let's give them their website in case they want to look at some of the pictures while you're talking here.

Sheri: It'll be PalauLinkCenter.org.

Romy: And let's spell that for them.

Sheri: P-A-L-A-U-L-I-N-K [inaudible]C-E-N-T-E-R.org.

Romy: Okay, perfect. Perfect, perfect. And there's a lot of pictures on the Link2Lift.com website, and that's www L-I-N-K2? The number 2? L-I-F, as in Frank, T as in Tom dot com. All right, so just a little sidestep there. If they want to just tune into your pictures while you're telling this great story. So let's talk about your program, The Common Good. Its Common Good Collaboration Model? Is that the full name of your program?

Sheri: Yeah. For short, we call it The Common Good Collaborator, but it's a process, and so yeah, they model. It's a process of four stages. I like to go in with my client and ask a lot of questions. Usually, people have come to me because they've heard that I can help reimagine their space. It's interesting the amount of people who have this dilemma now. You look at retailers; you look at the commercial property, church buildings, faith communities, it's kind of a dilemma. What do we do? Now that technology has allowed us to do so much remotely, it's changed the consumer, how they think. So, when people approach me, they usually have an idea that they would like to impact their community. Whether it's through jobs or some other way. And so that first process is really important where I just ask a lot of really good questions. Because I believe that property owners have to really resonate with the community that they attract, you know the co-working space they attract. So, whatever it is they care about, we're gonna build something under that umbrella. I think it's the highest chance of sustainability when the owner's really behind it.

We explore all the options of what that can look like, and to be honest with you, this is like the funnest part because I approach the common good collaborator like a city. Imagine a thriving city and what it takes to have a thriving city, and a post office, and a gas station, and a market, and work, and so I put that into a building, and so we have a lot of fun learning what would create a thriving community in your building, and what kind of community do you want that to look like. What kind of culture, who do you wanna impact as a result? And that's really the fun part, and then we get to create it. Have a network of people that we can bring into the conversation.

I love using local talent. I think everyone who lives in town could be a part of building this space, architect's design if there is a budget for that. If not, there are a lot of people that are very creative, and they can repurpose space. But, if the property owner or my client really feels like they want me to bring in the talent like you have that and we can definitely consult on that. And then we go through just this release phase where we say to the client, "Hopefully we have helped create a co-working or shared space environment that a portion, at least a portion of it, is dedicated through common good to create greater impact. And here is the strategic plan for the next 12 months."

And then we check in with them, and we help develop that shape, that culture of the community because it is gonna require a new muscle memory than the way people have worked before. Because remember, the way we worked before was very much in silos and very much caused weariness and duplication of effort. But, in that same weariness in the new environment, there's this temptation to go

Back for another conversation this time with a very inspiring woman, Kate Hayes of Echoing Green. Kate discusses her incredibly interesting journey and love for health human interactions and support. She is a  current leader in the impact investing and social enterprise development space.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. Romy here back for another conversation with a very inspiring woman, Kate Hayes of Echoing Green. Kate discusses her incredibly interesting journey and love for health human interactions and support.

Wow, what a really great episode on a social enterprise called Genusee. Creatively designing eyewear out of recycled single-use plastic water bottles out of Flint, Michigan. Many of you may have heard some tough stories coming out of Flint. Specific to the water crisis over these past few years. You will meet the founders and designers, Ali Rose Van Overbeke and Jack Burns. They will discuss their journey in Flint and the whole launch process to date.

Welcome to episode 97 of the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. This is Romy, and I am your host for this episode on a really great social enterprise called Genusee. They are out of Flint, Michigan. Many of you may have heard some tough stories coming out of Flint, Michigan specific to the water crisis over these past few years. You will meet the founders and designers, Ali Rose Van Overbeke and Jack Burns. They discuss their journey in Flint and the whole launch process to date.

We’re back with another episode here on social enterprise. We have a doctor on this show who has been making a big impact in Detroit. It is Dr. Paul Thomas of Plum Health Care DPC. He has a dream of changing the notion of health care from a plastic card in your wallet to true healing from a healing doctor!  What a concept!

Hi Everyone, this is Romy, and we’re back with another episode here on social enterprise. We have a doctor on this show who has been making a big impact in Detroit. It is Dr. Paul Thomas of Plum Health Care DPC. He has a dream of changing the notion of health care from a plastic card in your wallet to true healing from a healing doctor! What a concept!

The Medicine Ball isn’t usually the hottest topic of conversation.

If you like to exercise and are a gym goer, you may incorporate the medicine ball into your routine. Or perhaps this little dynamo isn’t a part of your repertoire and you pass by, leaving it sitting on the rack wondering what to do with it.

While there are many ways to use the medicine ball in strength training, according to the website, azcentral.com,

One of the early uses of medicine balls was around 1,000 B.C. where Persian soldiers used round bladders filled with sand as part of their resistance training.

Romy: How did you get the idea to start to do this?

Dr. Paul Thomas: Well, I heard a podcast in 2012, and I was driving back from a residency interview in Minnesota. My friend sent me this text, and she just said, "Hey, Paul, there's this guy doing this libertarian concept for medical care, and I think it's right up your alley." My friend's a libertarian, so I gave it a listen, and it sounded like this really great idea, but at the time, I wanted to be a teacher, a family medicine doctor who teaches other students and residents, so I filed it in the back of my mind.

Then I went to this conference for the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, and there was this really powerful speaker, who talked about the value of being a primary care doctor, all the great things that we can do for our patients, and the value of using a membership model to serve our patients. These two doctors were relentlessly positive and upbeat about their work that they were doing, and it was inspiring, so I did this road trip and visited their practices. One was in Wichita, and that gentleman was Dr. Josh Umbehr, and one was in Denver, Colorado, and his practice was NextEra Health, and that was Dr. Clint Flanagan.

I had, really, two great mentors. I drove out, and I took the best of exactly what they were doing, and I brought it back to Detroit. In short, I stole the idea from some other great thinkers.

Romy: So, are you originally from Detroit, or what's your connection to Detroit?

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah, so I was born here, and I grew up in Grosse Pointe, so I've always been in and around the city. And my family has been in the city for multiple generations, so it's kind of somewhere I care a lot about and a place that I want to give back to.

Romy: So, when did you officially open for business, as Dr. Paul Thomas, DPC in Detroit?

Dr. Paul Thomas: November 1, 2016, and it's a little bit hazy. I know it was November, but I just had some people pre-enrolled, and then one of those people who had pre-enrolled for the IVF Plum Health actually needed something in November, so I started seeing them, and I guess it's the first official time that I've launched. And I was making house calls at that point, and then I established my physical office in January of 2017.

Dr. Paul Thomas: At this point, it's about 95% in office work, and I'll make a house call here or there for people who really need it.

Romy: And so, what has the response been? Because it's very inexpensive to have your services. It's really destructive in the healthcare market, and I mean that, in really, I hesitate to use the word innovative, but it's just going back to the basics, which is about us as human beings. How has it been received in the Detroit market by your customers?

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah. I mean our customer reviews speak for themselves. We've got a ton of great reviews on Google, on Facebook, and Yelp, et cetera. I mean, that's kind of like a basic layer for that. But it's been a really positive reception from community leaders like we won the Motor City Match Award, and we're going to use that money to build out a larger office. We've been invited to speak at TEDx Detroit, and that was a really positive response to what we're doing. And I think the community has embraced this idea. I think some people might be a little skeptical at first of, "Why don't you take my insurance?" But once they get into the practice, once they meet me, once we talk and once I spend an hour with them to go over their health history and figure out what their concerns are, I win people over pretty quickly to the idea of direct primary care.

Romy: Right. Just because it's always been one way for them doesn't mean it's still the right way to go forward. You know. And I don't think people realize how expensive insurance is to manage for physicians.

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah. So typically, a doctor spends more ... half or two-thirds of their time doing non-patient care activities. And one of those, the biggest activities is billing and coding the medical encounter. So, you go in for a visit, and you have a 20-minute time slot with your doctor. And they might spend 8 minutes with you and then use the other 12 to document the visit appropriately and then send it off to the biller. And then that's not where it ends. They have to hire a bunch of billers and coders to double-check their work and then send it off to the insurance company for payment. And if you're lucky, the insurance company will pay you about 60% of what you bill out. Right? So, let's say you bill for a strep throat visit, which is $140 and get paid maybe 60% of that, so you're left with about 90 bucks. But then you have to ... usually half of your revenue goes to your overhead, you have a really high overhead running a traditional family medicine office. So, you're paying all your billers and coders to do that work.

So, in short, doctors are spending a lot of time and a lot of money trying to get paid by insurance companies. So, by removing all of that, kind of, rubbish, let's say, I get to spend all of my time with my patients. And I don't have to send my bill to an insurance company. I just ask my patient to pay me the fifty bucks a month.

Romy: Love it. Love it, love it. I'm a huge fan of this bringing the services direct. I love it. Eliminating the middle-man.

Well, what are some of the things that you're seeing from an impact on people's health? I'm just really curious to see if more people are stepping up and saying, "I'd like to use..." They're more likely to maybe use your services.

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I mean the stories that I've come across, the people that I've met are unbelievable. You know, folks who don't have insurance and are scared about what it's going to cost to go in to get something taken care of. And then they sign up for a membership with me, after like 4, 5, 10. I had a guy who came in; he was 40. And he hadn't been to the doctor since high school. So, like 22 years. Not seeing a doctor because he was scared about what it would cost. And so, I end up finding a lot of high blood pressure that's been untreated, or diabetes that's been untreated and the person may not even be aware of it because a lot of these diseases or conditions can be silent and that's the real danger. They call high blood pressure, or hypertension, the silent killer because you don't know you have a problem until you might have a heart attack or a stroke.

So, those are tough, when you have that conversation, like, "Listen. Your blood pressure's been elevated for God knows how long, but I'm glad you're here now. Let's take care of it." And then they're surprised to find out that the blood pressure medication that they might need is one cent per pill. So, they're spending 30 cents a month to manage it now.

Romy: Gets rid of that whole fear piece.

Dr. Paul Thomas: At first, I had a pretty strong, well I still do. But I used social media to get out there. I wrote a blog post. I speak at events, like TEDx Detroit. I talk to as many bloggers and podcasters as I can. I wrote some opinion pieces for the Detroit News. I got interviewed on Channel 4, WDIV which was awesome. That really got the word out for us. That was a huge break.

So, all of those things in combination has led to a strong funnel for people to find our practice and now that we're up to about 250 members, and we've been doing this for a year and a half, word of mouth is starting to play a role, where people are starting to refer their friends or family and people and people are really comfortable with the service and enjoy the service. So, we're growing in all sorts of ways now.

Romy: That's powerful. I think that's pretty encouraging for other service providers considering this membership model. That's turned out to work well for you, right?

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah. It's worked great. And I guess somebody asked me about how you've been successful in marketing, so if you're thinking of starting a business, or if you want to provide a service to the world, tell people why you're doing it. And for me, my why is that I want to bring affordable, accessible health care to Detroit. And that hasn't been here always. It's not routinely available. So, when I tell that story, it resonates with people and people want to share it. So, if you want to do something great, if you have ambition-driven business or a charitable organization, get really good at telling your story and why it's valuable for people.

Romy: Yeah. That's such a good word that we can get tangled up in. Sometimes defending why we're out they and we forget to talk about that powerful why that gets us up in the morning.

Dr. Paul Thomas: Right.

Romy: Yeah So let's move into something ... another angle of your business. You also offer healthcare services to an entire business. Right? Kind of, I would call that almost a commercial offering.

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yeah. Definitely. I have a few small businesses that have signed up for our service. A restaurant, like an organization that manufactures a product, a political campaign and in total that comes out to about 35 to 40 employees in total among those different businesses that we have enrolled. And essentially, their employees receive the same services that an individual would, but the employer pays for those services. So, it's a direct primary care option for small businesses, and it works really well for those companies that are either self-insured or they don't have enough revenue to provide health insurance for all their team members, but they do want to provide some sort of health care because it's the right thing to do. So, I'm happy to help those folks out.

Romy: That speaks to the health of the business, too, right? If they've got healthy employees, then they can offer something, right? Traditional health insurance is very expensive for a small employer. And that's ... can be almost overwhelming in terms of a monthly cash flow for a small business. So, this is a great alternative.

Dr. Paul Thomas: Right. So, like, yeah, it's one of employees at the restaurant cuts their finger and they need stitches, they can call me up, and they're right down the street so they can get it done, pretty much, right away. And it costs $10 for the suture material and the laceration kit, the tools that I need to do the job. So, the charge for that visit is ten bucks.

Romy: Has anyone been upset with you that you're doing it this way?

Dr. Paul Thomas: Well, I get a couple of people who call in and who ask me to be their doctor. Well, I can't. "I saw your great reviews on Google, like 30 five-star reviews, and my friend told me about you, and this is awesome." And I'll say something like, "Oh. This is so great. I'm so happy to hear that. Before we get started I just want to make sure that you understand that this is a monthly membership, it's fifty bucks a month, I don't bill or use your insurance." And they're like, "Well, I have X health insurance product." And I'm like, "Okay, that's great. I don't bill or use that." And they're like, "What do you mean; you don't? Like, why do I have this?" And that's like, that's the most upset anyone will ever get. And I can understand. They either hang up at that point and say, "All right. I'm sorry. I didn't understand fully."

Or, I'll explain to them there's a difference between health insurance and healthcare. And health insurance is a financial product to protect you from bankruptcy, like car insurance or home insurance, et cetera. And healthcare is the relationship with the doctor. Somebody that listens to you understands your concerns and is able to help you in a holistic, patient-centered way. And that's what I throw at my patients. That holistic approach. The time to listen, the time to care about them. And that's healthcare.

Romy: Yes. Right. And any other, have you inspired any other physicians to say, "Hey, gosh, I would consider either joining you or doing something similar?"

Dr. Paul Thomas: Yes. For sure. So, I meet with ... I meet and talk with a new doctor almost every day. Definitely a few times a week. There's doctor who's going to be starting up in Northern Oakland County, kind of under my guidance. There's a doctor who's looking at opening up in Ypsilanti, again under my guidance. And then I have a few physicians who are interested in joining my practice. So, just kind of evaluating options and growth strategies to make it work in a sustainable way.

And then another thing is I teach at the medical school, at Wayne State, and I also give lectures there and some interacting with students in trying to inspire the next generation of family doctors or internists, or pediatricians to do this, kind of, membership-based practice because I feel like there is a much bigger option for satisfaction and the ability to give the greatest care possible when you have enough time to deliver that care.

Romy: Well, I love the idea of you expanding with you at the helm, because at some point there's only so many people you can see. But I love this idea that you're teaching some others or attempting to inspire some others. I'm sure you are. You're a great speaker. I've heard you speak in public before, and I was inspired. So, I think that's thrilling for me to hear that you're inviting others to participate at the table. I think the world's a better place when we invite others to join up in the train and it becomes a bigger and bigger impact. How ... that's a good segue to ask about dreaming big. If you were going to let yourself just dream off big with just what you know as of today, what could this look like?

Dr. Paul Thomas: I think this could look like a nation where we, kid of, get rid of these old notions of what good healthcare looks like, and starting to realize that it doesn't look like a piece of plastic in our wallet, and it looks like a relationship with someone in our community that's a healer, that can listen, that has the time to address your concerns. And my dream is that more and more physician’s kind of wake up and also have the courage to step out on their own and to deliver the kind of care that they were trained to deliver, and rather than just being told that they only have eight minutes to spend with their patients. That rather just saying, "I get to decide what I get to do with my time because I'm not beholden to you, a third-party entity, like an insurance company or a government payer. Like my patients pay me directly so I'm going to do whatever I can to serve them the way I would want to serve a family member or friend. So, that's the message that I'm delivering to my

Thanks for tuning in for this great episode on a social enterprise out of Miami! Our guest is Andres Restrepo, one of the founders of PalmEraMia, which is a fashion design company for athletic wear. Through their product sales, they support clean water efforts in Colombia. We learn why they chose Colombia and how they became so convicted about clean water for those without access. Stay tuned until the end of the show because we have our first Spanish rapper as our closing song on this episode.

Thanks for tuning in for this great episode on a social enterprise out of Miami! This is Romy, and I am honored to be your host. Our guest is Andres Restrepo, one of the founders of PalmEraMia, which is a fashion design company for athletic wear. Through their product sales, they support clean water efforts in Colombia. We learn why they chose Colombia and how they became so convicted about clean water for those without access. We have our first Spanish rapper as our closing song on this episode.

I’m Natalie Hazen and I am bringing you this episodes’ Fun Fuel.

Andres: Thank you. I appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Romy: I know. We've been trying to connect for a little bit. I'm really glad to have you on the show as our guest today. Let's tell all of our listeners what Palm ... and am I saying it right? Palm Era Mia?

Andres: That is correct. Some-

Romy: Palm Era Mia.

Andres: ... people say-

Romy: Yeah.

Andres: ... yes. Some people say Palm Era M-I-A because it represents Miami.

Romy: Oh, Okay.

Andres: Yes. Yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about it. We first started the company back in August of 2015. It was started by three family members. It's two cousins and I. We started it up just because we had a passion for fashion. We wanted to just make sure we did something about it. We had a passion for doing something different. We said, "Hey, let's give it a shot." At the time we were all looking to do something that mattered. It became more of an idea that we said, "Hey, let's put it out there. Let's see what it looks like." It was more of my cousins that started on the fashion end. I'm more of a business-oriented person. When they presented me the idea of what exactly they wanted to do, I saw that it was something that was a potential opportunity to do something that was worth it.

We started off by creating some shirts and hats. We started off by getting some guidance from people that knew about the world of fashion already. We were fortunate enough to find some people that guided us along the path a little bit. Then we decided that we not only wanted to do something related to fashion, but we also wanted to do something that mattered, that took care of a problem in the world. We wanted to help out. We decided to start looking for something that mattered. We found that there was a great need for water around the world. We had some idea that there was some countries in Africa and certain things like you get to see on TV where there's places where there's drought, and there's people that suffer from water scarcity, but then we realized the problem was bigger than we thought.

There's close to a billion people around the world on an everyday basis that don't have access to clean water. We said that could be a great cause because we can live without food for a while. We can live without shelter for a bit, as well, but if you don't have water within a week your body starts having big issues. We decided to take care of that immediate need and see what we could do. Now what we do is that we take 10% of profits and we donate it to those who don't have access to clean water around the world.

Romy: Wow, gosh. When you brought up the social side of it, was your team in agreement with becoming basically a social enterprise?

Andres: Yes, so we actually, as I mentioned, were family members. We were all raised to always be aware of those who don't have as much as you do, even if what you have isn't much, to be able to help out a little bit. Just to give out a lending hand and we thought, "Hey, maybe at some point when the brand does well, we should think of helping other people out." But then someone brought up, "Hey, but why don't we start helping since the beginning? We just make it part of who the brand is and help people identify to it." When we thought about it more we said, "Hey, that would be a great idea because what that'll do is, that'll bring additional value. When people buy something from the brand, they'll wear it with pride." That's where that came about. Since we thought about it that way, it was a unanimous decision across the board that we just wanted for it to be a portion of profits.

Romy: How do you-

Andres: It was very cool.

Romy: Oh, I'm sorry. How do you find your customers, both new and repeating, react to that? Do you ever get any feedback from that?

Andres: Yeah, so we-

Romy: From social about you?

Andres: ... yeah, we actually get a lot of people come on the site, and they like the brand. But we've found that what we've done not only helps people out and it's self-satisfying, but at the same time, like I was telling you, it does add that additional value to the people who are looking for something that's worth it, because they feel like they're not just buying a piece of clothing, they're wearing something that represents something good. They feel that they can ... We've had people that tell us, "Hey, look. I like your shirts and I like shirts from somewhere else, but I really appreciate that you guys are doing something for the world, so I went ahead and got something from your site." You get people giving us feedback all the time. We tend to post videos on what we've done for the cause. People have great reactions to it. They're very excited about what we're going to do next.

Romy: Wow. While we're still on this social mission side of your organization having to deal with water, how did you go about selecting some of the organizations that you partner with for the water portion?

Andres: Right. So, I as a ... My career is as an accountant. My mind tends to be very logical, very within-the-box, as compared to my cousins, which are more on the creative side. We actually kind of make a pretty good team because we offer kind of both sides of the spectrum, my side being more logical and seeing it from what-fits-in-the-box kind of point of view. We decided to look for someone that could show that whatever was donated was actually being used for the cause itself, that it wasn't being used for something different because as many people see it when it comes to charity, unfortunately, there's people that mishandle whatever funds they receive. We wanted to make sure that it went to somewhere where these funds were actually being used properly.

At first, we started donating directly to Charity: Water, which is an organization based out of New York. They're very clear about where their funds go. They use it to directly build the wells for basically areas or ... what do you call it ... regions and little towns where they don't have access to clean water. We started donating directly to them, but as part of what we wanted to do, we wanted to get more directly involved. We didn't want to just donate the money. We wanted to be a part of what was going on, go to communities and directly make contact with these people so we can understand what needs they truly have.

At first, we donated to Charity: Water just because we didn't have the resources to be able to visit these communities. We did that for the first year and a half. Actually this past year, we transitioned from donating to Charity: Water to actually going to a community that needed access to water through an organization that we had met. This organization

... that this gentleman was raising funds for his organization through a 5K. We wanted to participate, so we went to the 5K to help him raise some funds for his cause. We had a direct conversation with him. He told us what he was doing. We thought it was a great idea because we are from Colombia in South America and so was he. He was directly trying to help out some communities in Colombia. We thought, "Hey, that's a territory that we actually see that needs a lot of help, so why don't we give this a shot?" We had a conversation with him to see if we could visit the community itself. He was actually looking for volunteers to go help out.

We transitioned from donating to Charity: Water to actually going to the community this past November. It was actually very representative because we were able to go during Thanksgiving. It was a great time, of in a way of giving thanks for all the people that had helped out throughout the year and purchased anything from the brand, to be able to bring all those funds we had gathered to be able to help out a community in need. It was actually really nice.

Romy: Wow. I love that organic and authentic part of this story that you're from Colombia, and you ended up reconnecting right back there. It's a nicer, more natural fit. I think sometimes we ... those of us in social enterprise and impact investing ... sometimes we can get trying too hard to do the right thing, and there is something in our own history, or our own backyard, or something nearer to us that is actually a better, easier fit. That's interesting.

Andres: Right. It was definitely very nice. We were [inaudible 00:11:51] being from Colombia, still having family members there, and still being very connected to the country. Even though we had heard there's areas in the northern part of Colombia that ... they're desert regions ... that we knew maybe didn't have as much access to water, but they've always been there all their life, but unfortunately the past few years they've had years of drought. There's actually areas where there's ... One of the areas that we visited, there was three years without rain. From the news and what they tell us in that area, there was a portion in that area where we visited, over that span of three years, around 15,000 children died. It's something that is a very serious problem, even in a country might have the resources to help, but they're just, unfortunately, they're not getting to the right area, so, yeah.

Romy: That statistic is unnerving. Yeah.

Andres: Yeah. It's tough news. We decided. We're like, "Hey, we have to try and do something. These are our people. We've got to try to do a little bit at least."

Romy: Oh, yeah. Well, that's powerful. That really anchors a "why" in your mission there. Boy, I could go deep-diving into that one, but let me make sure we talk about your great product line. You have both men's, women's, and accessories. Let's kind of jump over to what I call the bonfire or the heat engine that makes this all work, the business side of it. Let's talk about your product line.

Andres: So as we started on the brand, we slowly started making our name for ourselves. We've become known as the streetwear brand with a charitable mindset. We started off just with t-shirts and hats. Then we slowly started exploring other areas. We started coming out with some sweatshirts and long-sleeved shirts, and we've gotten to the point where we have some great products. Now we have jackets. We have some hoodies, some bracelets. We've made accessories, fanny packs, shoulder bags. We have plenty of nice things. We've always focused on creating great quality. As we do that, we've also slowly started venturing into new materials. One of our great products right is, for example, a gentleman's jacket that's made out of neoprene, or other people know it as scuba material, which is what scuba divers use for whenever they're diving in colder temperatures.

Romy: Interesting.

Andres: Yeah, so the jacket is a great feel. It's very smooth. It's great for weather. It's a little bit of whether you're in an area like us down here in south Florida where we only get a little bit of winter, just on the occasional night that drops into the 60s, 70s, or also I was recently out in Colorado in an area where it was around 30 degrees. It felt great, as well, because what that material does is that it doesn't allow the outside temperature to affect, I guess, how you feel. It just kind of keeps that out. It's like an insulator, which is very good. It's also great for traveling because it doesn't wrinkle up.

Romy: Wow, nice. Nice. Yeah, so in the website right now. I'm going to give them the website a couple of times. It's palmeramia.com. Anyone who's interested in listening to the podcast right now can jump on and look what Andres is saying. Beautiful, beautiful clothing there.

Andres: Yeah. And then also, you can find us on all our social media websites. It's also PalmEraMia, which is P-A-L-M-E-R-A-M-I-A. We're constantly updating you on what we're doing, and what we have coming up new collection lines. We're trying to come out with a new collection every three months or so for every season. We have some exciting things coming up for this spring, a little more formal attire. And then also for the summer, we have something that's going to be really exciting. It's going to be the big collection for the year, so look out for that.

Romy: That's great. I'm sorry I took you off your track there with the website, but let's keep going. There's women's clothing, too?

Andres: Yes, so actually now in the summer, we came out with the first women's collection. We offered some great ... we're starting to venture deep into a more cut-and-sew world, which is more specific into what we wanted to do, diving deeper into different materials, as I was mentioning. We also have a ladies' jacket that's very fashionable. It's great for a casual night out or a nice dinner, as well. Everything is based around comfort and quality. I'm sure you'll be able to find something there. We have some hats for ladies, some joggers that are great for a nice workout. We have a lot of different things.

Romy: How did you begin studying price points?

Andres: We actually have a few brands that we've looked at as we've started growing, just because we wanted to learn from those who have done it already. Not only that, but just decide what our area of competition is as we're venturing into this world, and just looking around to see what's out there, and just learning from the business, like I said, learning from founders of companies that have already done it. We try to learn the best from each one. Not only that, but listen to what they've done already, and learn from their mistakes to try to avoid it, and to try to take the best path. As we've gone on looking to the brands and see who has similar items, we decided to set a price point somewhere between. But even though there's always that temptation of pricing your products a bit higher because the pricier they are, or the more expensive they are, not only the more profit we get but the more we can help out.

But we also wanted to model the brand after something that was affordable for everyone because growing up we always some brands that we looked up to, that we really liked, but unfortunately, at times they were too expensive for us to be able to get anything, just because maybe we weren't making our money, and we had to ask our parents for it, or even when we did start making money, it was something that just wasn't financially available for us. What we decided to do was to set a price point that was affordable for everyone while we could still grab a little bit to be able to help the cause side of it, and be able to take out enough to be able to keep the company growing, as well. It's just a constant juggling of being able to get the brand to the correct price point so that the customers are satisfied, and it still seems very attractive to them, while still having our goals in mind, if that makes any sense.

Romy: Yeah, it's hard. Retail is tricky sometimes in fashion, but it's great where you guys are priced. It's inviting. You don't want to be ... especially when you have a cause ... you've got to mark it up enough to continue with your cause, and have the math work for your business so you can keep your doors open. But that's great, you guys are a beautiful shop. We're excited to see what happens here in the future. What's your growth plans? Let's kind of dream big with what you know at this moment, your truth is a moment.

Andres: We're actually very happy about how far the brand has come...

Back for another episode of the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. Kathleen Kelly Janus is our guest discussing her new book, Social Startup Success, How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference. Kathleen is an award-winning social entrepreneur, lawyer, and lecturer at Stanford University, where she teaches social entrepreneurship.  And, as usual, we have a great Detroit artist playing a full song at the end of the episode so stay tuned.

Hello there, this is Romy back for another episode on the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. We have author, Kathleen Kelly Janus, as our guest discussing her new book, Social Startup Success, How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference. Kathleen is an award-winning social entrepreneur, lawyer, and lecturer at Stanford University, where she teaches social entrepreneurship. And, as usual, we have a great Detroit artist playing a full song at the end of the episode so stay tuned.

Kathleen: Well, this is a really critical question, as you know, Romy, and I think that it can be a controversial word, like a four-letter word, in the nonprofit sector and the for-profit sector because I think a lot of people would say that scale isn't necessarily a good thing for a number of reasons. Maybe we don't want big organizations. Maybe we want a lot of organizations working together. Maybe we want more Mom and Pop organizations that communities know best how to solve the problems of individual communities and scaling aren't necessarily going to be effective. Something that works in San Francisco isn't necessarily going to work in the middle of Iowa.

All of that true, and, also, we do have so many organizations that have really, really great ideas to scale and to grow, to expand their impact, and so the problem is that of the 300,000 nonprofits in the United States, 2/3 of them are $500,000 and below in revenue, constantly struggling to make the next payroll, when what they really should be focused on is making impact.

I wrote this book because I was really curious, who are the organizations that are getting over this revenue hump? What are the ones that are getting to, say, around two million dollars, which I define in the book as getting to a level of sustainability, where you're not constantly teetering on the brinks of collapse as an organization? I got to interview over 100 of the top performing nonprofits in the United States in order to try and get to the bottom of that question. Those are the findings that I feature in my new book Social Startup Success.

Romy: Wow. Well, I'm glad you just hit that head on because I'm delighted with the idea of scale, just for all the reasons you said, and there's just efficiency as partnerships can happen in the ecosystem when you've got successful organizations instead of those that are, I think you said in your introduction, spending more energy trying to just stay alive than delivering their social mission. I think we bump into them here in the Midwest in the Detroit area left and right and the donor fatigue and the staff fatigue is so high, they are about to collapse. I was delighted when I saw the word scale because I don't know, I'm sort of a practical, in-the-weeds gal at the street level, and we see the reality of what's going on.

Kathleen: Absolutely. A scale doesn't have to mean that you're a 50-million-dollar organization in the nonprofit sector. It's interesting.

Kathleen: In fact, only 140 nonprofits that were started since 1970 have actually sailed past 50 million dollars, and those are the big organizations that we think of, like Teach for America, and those organizations are doing important work, but the reality is that the vast majority of organizations will never get to that level of scale, so when we talk about scale, I'm not talking about scaling past millions and millions of dollars of revenue. I'm really talking about how do we get organizations to a level of sustainability.

Romy: Keeping the doors open. The first rule of sustainability.

Kathleen: Exactly.

Romy: First rule.

Kathleen: That's basic.

Romy: Let's step back to our listeners and talk about your role right now with Stanford and your history with Spark. Many of our listeners may not be familiar with that. Would you mind taking us on a little tour of your work life and your history there?

Kathleen: Absolutely. Well, I think, like most people, I am an accidental social entrepreneur. I didn't intend to go out and start a nonprofit. I always felt passionate about giving back to causes that I cared about, so when I started working as a corporate lawyer in San Francisco, I wanted to get involved in nonprofits and didn't find one that was really engaging and harnessing the spirit of young people, and so we started Spark as a way to engage young professionals, millennials, in new forms of philanthropy to support gender equality issues, so at that point, I was spending my days billing corporate legal hours and spending my nights making name tags and guest lists and sending out grant reports and working on building this nonprofit, Spark.

That was really, for me, the first opportunity where I felt like I could be an activist and claim that and be a leader in the social justice movement even though I was a young professional in the corporate sector, too, and I think that's one of the things that's so exciting about being alive today is that our work, giving back, doesn't have to be relegated to after five when we leave the office, that there is so much more opportunity to be involved in social causes, whether you're working at Goldman Sachs or in a law firm or for a nonprofit or a social enterprise.

I started teaching at Stanford as a way to evangelize that message. I quit my job as a corporate lawyer and I started working in human rights work and social entrepreneurship. In my class, I often get students who ask me, "Should I go work for a nonprofit, or should I go make some money and then give back later?" It turns out that it doesn't have to be an either/or thing, that you can give back no matter whether you're 25 years old or you're a 65-year-old millionaire, that there are opportunities to give every space in between. That's one of the issues that I've become most passionate about is I've written Social Startup Success just thinking about how can we all have tools to be able to be more effective with the resources that we're spending on social causes so that we can be more efficient at solving these really pressing social problems, like global poverty and climate change. The clock is ticking on these issues, and we need to be effective and efficient if we want to make a dent.

Romy: I love this idea that you're talking about here, that the book has launched from this student question. We get that a lot. We have students from around the globe reaching out to us asking those same questions because we're in this space here. I often get the sub or the follow-up question of, "Well, what if I wanna work for this company, but they don't have these types of programs? How am I gonna feel?" My opportunity is to say, it's always, "Well, here's your opportunity to start something and put something in place that will be a legacy for those that follow behind you. It's not always a what can you do for me and is your company gonna fit my giving pattern. It's an opportunity for you to create a way to give that's unique to you because there's probably someone else that will follow you that will enjoy your-"

Romy: ... There's probably someone else that will follow you, that will enjoy your path making if you will.

Kathleen: Yes, I love that Romy. You know, companies have no choice but to institute social cause programs into their work. The evidence shows that 85% of millennials specifically accept a job at a company because of their work in X cause. This is really important data when you're looking at some of the turnover at major tech companies for example. The average tenure is a year and a half.

Romy: Ooh.

Kathleen: And this is really, really expensive for companies, to lose employees. So if you can generate loyalty by starting social cause programs, opportunities to volunteer, to give a certain number of your hours to non-profit work, to do donation drives. Whatever your program might be, you're ultimately going to have a happier workforce, and a much more effective company too.

Romy: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Before we stray off down another path, I want to get back to your great book here. As we mentioned I'm most of the way through it, and thanks for sharing it with me ahead of time. I just love so many of the basic functional things you talk about in the book, and you talk about you have this feeling in your book, in your writing of like, "It's okay to fail a little bit. It's okay to test. It's okay to experiment." Let's talk a little bit about that, related to some of your findings when you were out talking to all these non-profits that have done things well.

Kathleen: Well, testing is critical, and something that non-profits and for-profits can all learn from. I think that we have, we now live in an age where human-centered design has become more common in the workplace, this is just this idea of using customer-facing mechanisms to test out prototypes in sort of low-cost ways, that you can then perfect before you scale. One of the most interesting findings from all of my interviews is that non-profits are doing this kind of testing too in small ways. For non-profits, it's really critical, particularly in the early stages of development because they don't necessarily have a lot of resources. Sadly there's not a lot of seed funding for social enterprises.

This testing process becomes a way to both try and figure out what kind of program is going to work, to develop a really close relationship with your end users, your customers, your beneficiaries. And also, to develop the data so that when you go out and raise money for your cause, you can say, "Look, this is working and I have some impact to show for it." For example, ... And it doesn't have to be really expensive, or fancy. An example that I talk about is Beth Schmidt, who founded Wishbone, was a teacher in a low-income school and realized that her students weren't getting the same kind of opportunities that so many of their more privileged counterparts were getting to follow their dreams during the summer.

She assigned them an essay to talk about their passions, she went to a photocopy machine, she photocopied some of the top papers in the class, and she sent them off to her families and friends. She thought, "What if I could get people to pay for low-income students to follow their dreams?" Her family and friends came back with thousands of dollars to fund these kids for art camp, and film fellowships during the summer. Then she was able to go back to those donors and tell them about the stories of these kids, and the impact that these summer experiences had, had on their lives.

It was then that she realized, "Okay look, I have this idea. This is really, it's really impactful for the donors, it's really impactful for the students for all of these reasons," and she was able to go out and raise a whole bunch of money because she had done this low-cost prototype in the start. This is an example of what that kind of testing process might look like for an organization. That again, it doesn't have to be expensive, and it's critical because it develops this sense of being okay with understanding when things fail. But that's another part of the testing process that we are not so comfortable within the non-profit sector because we have to go out and raise money. There's not a lot of incentive to talk about where we're failing, and yet no one's going to be effective in the long run if they're not able to acknowledge not only what's working, but what's not working.

Romy: Right. No one's going to have the answers right out of the gate.

Kathleen: No, no. And what's interesting is that this testing process becomes embedded within the DNA of the organization as they grow. It enables them to constantly be improving as they grow and to scale.

Romy: You know, you touched on something that is one of my, I'll call it nerve points. I'll probably have to come up with a better word for that. But, when ... Which I love you hit on this. There's that concept testing that's just talking about the theory of what you want to do, and then there's that testing where you're really trying something and asking for funding for it.

Kathleen: Yes.

Romy: There's something about putting money down on it, or some say, "Skin of the game," or I guess legal terms, you're putting consideration down on the deal, meaning that you're really into it. We do have some of the folks that come to us saying, "Well I've been testing this," and our auto response is, "How have you been testing this? Have customers or donors been giving you money or consideration for it, or are you talking to them about it? Cause those are two different results." Did you find any of that in your studies?

Kathleen: Well absolutely. I mean, it has to be about having that really close relationship, both before and after the consideration happens, right?

Romy: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kathleen: So it's not only about testing with people, but it's involving them in every step of the process. Are you engaging them to develop the idea in the first place? And this is where a lot of organizations go wrong, because frankly a lot of social enterprises are coming out of big university pitch competitions, where students are encouraged to come up with a great idea for an organization, when they don't necessarily have connections or lived experience with the issue that they're trying to solve. Not everybody is going to have list experience, and that's fine. If you haven't been homeless, it doesn't mean that you aren't equipped to try and solve the problem of homelessness. But, you better have some interaction with homeless people.

Romy: Right?

Kathleen: You're building a program to solve their problem.

Romy: Right.

Kathleen: That's not only true when you're providing services, but it's true even in the development process, even in those early stages of getting the program up and running.

Romy: Yes, yes. And I feel those same principles apply to either customer acquisition, or donor acquisition, or both. There's still a similar process.

Kathleen: Absolutely, absolutely. And being honest, and creating those honest relationships. So getting back to fundraising, I mean some of the best funders that I talk to will ask an organization that comes in the door, "What have you failed at? What's not working?" As a proxy for understanding whether they are really being honest with themselves, and testing in a way that is meaningful.

Romy: Wow, gosh. That's interesting. I noticed this beautiful encouragement test and experiment in your book. Moving to some of the things that, that data produces, it produces both, of course, you mention data that you can share, and the storytelling. How do you find Kathleen, that the data helps give them accountability or credibility, integrity? Will you talk about how that helps an organization?

Kathleen Janus: How we're collecting data to test whether what we were doing is actually having an impact. So, interestingly, in the survey that I conducted of 250 social entrepreneurs around the country, the organizations that tended to scale more quickly said that they began measuring their impact from the start.

This is critical, whether you're a...

Our Common Future conference was held in Detroit, Michigan at the end of October 2017. We have a Part One and a Part Two to give you the top ten.  We will interview several guest speakers that help shape our community. They give us some insight into the work that they do to empower entrepreneurship and Impact Investing.

Welcome Back to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. On this episode, we continue with part two of the Our Common Futures conference. On this episode, Jennifer and Natalie, catch up with conference attendees Melanie Audette with the Mission Investors Exchange, Brenda Hunt with the Battle Creek Community Foundation, Amy Peterson of Rebel Nell, David Contorer with Hebrew Free Loans, and Jason Paulateer with PNC Bank and Foundation.

Jennifer: What I'd like to start off today, during our talk is to have you tell me a little bit about yourself and your organization and then we'll go from there.

Melanie: Well, I'm the Senior Vice President at Mission Investor's Exchange. I am based in Seattle and Mission Investor's Exchange is a 12 year old organization with offices in New York and San Francisco and then we have some staff in Seattle, but we're a very small but mighty team that has a membership consisting of mainly foundations of all types and sizes across the US who are either building or expanding an impact investing program. And we started out as the PRI Makers Network 12 years ago, when foundations were really focused mainly on doing program-related investments, and about five years ago we merged with The More Formation Campaign, which was a campaign to encourage foundations to devote two percent of their endowments to invest for a mission.

Jennifer: I love that. So here at the conference so far, what are your impressions then of how it works and how it applies to your mission through Mission Investor's Exchange?

Melanie: Well the independent sector conference as well as the Council of Michigan Foundation's Conference, where we are today, represents two things for me specifically. First, the independent sector has a very much more broad attendance and participation than a lot of the conferences that we attend and that includes the foundations who are at the heart of our network, but also those who play a very important role in the ecosystem around impact investing. And that includes non-profit organizations who oftentimes have social entrepreneurial goals and projects and so, therefore can be investees of impact investment's five foundations as well as those who support them in the field, so investment advisors, philanthropic advisors, attorneys, and accountants. All of those participants really play an incredibly important part helping foundations to identify who investees can be and to be able to do the work efficiently and within the law and correctly and responsibly.

The second part is the Council of Michigan Foundations, Mission Investor's Exchange has had a five-year partnership with CMF, and we've worked together over the years to provide education first for those foundations who are interested in learning about impact investing. Through this partnership, Michigan has become the model, really for the whole country informing what's now an infrastructure within that association to help foundations not only to learn about impact investing, but to actually build and identify investment opportunities, create a pipeline for investments, support them in that work and now this year, they've hired an Executive in Residence at CMF to help on a local and regional level, their membership to do this.

Jennifer: So understanding that you're drawing from a large group with a lot of people here from a lot of different areas all across the globe, what do you feel has been the highlight of the conference so far for you?

Melanie: Well, one of the highlights for me, because I was a speaker was seeing a room that was absolutely packed full of people who are interested in mission investing or impact investing and we've found that recently, that there is an incredible amount of interest, but what's most gratifying is to see the participants in the audience really respond to the examples of this work taking place in real life and we had panelists in our break out session, who helped people to understand, that even as a small foundation you can be responsive to the community, through different types of financial tools like alone, that really is a more appropriate use of capital for a particular situation, or an investment in a four concept business that has a mission, in this case it was Green Infrastructure that really fits our philanthropic mission as well, but it's a four profit investment that is also a real possibility for foundations to aline more of their capital with their mission.

Second, and this was really personally gratifying as well, I got to see Mo Rocca, and Mo Rocca is one of my heroes. He was moderating a session yesterday, and he has a kids show on CBS on Saturday mornings that my husband and I watch and it's called Innovation Nation.

Jennifer: Nice.

Melanie: And he did an incredible job talking to Gary Wozniak, Amy Peterson, and Davita Davison yesterday on plenary stage. These three social entrepreneurs were so inspiring. Davita Davison actually brought tears to my eyes, talking about her work in the food space and one of the quotes I loved from Davina yesterday was, she was talking about the people that she's in a sense mentoring and she said "I encourage them to run for the United States of America, for the President of the United States of America". And to me, a statement like that means that with leadership like this in communities, she is helping people to understand that anything is possible and our session, you know Impact Investing, The Art of the Possible, was really personified on that plenary stage yesterday by those speakers.

Jennifer:

Melanie: You know, it sounds funny but, at these conferences, there are oftentimes a lot of ... the sponsors are the ...

Jennifer: The exhibitions?

Melanie: The exhibitions.

Jennifer: Yep.

Melanie: So, a lot of times people just walk through the exhibitions, and you know that can be frustrating sometimes for the exhibitors, but I find that in talking with the exhibitors, I really learn a lot, but also find things to bring back and for this conference and this set of exhibitors, which is really excellent, I've found several things. One is the Fetzer Institute. The Fetzer Institute is an organization that is focused on, now in this environment, which is a little bit polarized, you know talking about spiritual healing.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Melanie: And this reconnected me with some work of Parker Palmer who is also another hero of mine and it reminded me that for our conference in May in Chicago next year, that some things to focus on include some of that racial and spiritual healing. Also, there was a group out of the booth in Chicago. There was an NBA program, a weekend program with full scholarships and for those in the non-profit sector who were thinking about learning more and engaging more in the impact investing space, that's an enormous opportunity to go from maybe having a social work background or a liberal arts background, which a lot of non-profit executives have, to having that opportunity that's funded by a foundation to have a full scholarship for a Saturday weekend program in Chicago. I thought that was amazing.

And finally, the artwork. There's an artist that's collating the ideas, the inspiration from the community in order to create a community artwork here at the conference and I'm excited to see that come to fruition and also look at the opportunities for engaging with the arts community next year. So these are really practical things that I've brought back from the conference, but they're really valuable. It's a part of the value that I get from attending a conference here.

Jennifer: And I'm in 100 percent agreement with you when you talk about art and what art can do and talking about being polarized in multiple different areas right now. Art can heal. Art can build bridges, and by being able to incorporate that into your conference next year, I know it's an amazing takeaway. I think that it's gonna be very impactful for the attendees and it will help heal and build those bridges. That's great.

Thanks, Jennifer and Melanie, for your parting thoughts on how very important community art can be along with Melanie’s note on the great exhibitors. Next up, Natalie catches up with Brenda Hunt, CEO of the Battle Creek Community Foundation. We jump into the conversation just as Brenda begins to discuss how much all of the different sectors of funders intersect, especially at this conference.

Natalie: You make a really good point about identifying the landscape with everybody working together in this space. Can you talk a little bit about how identifying the landscape is really important when it comes to impact investing?

Brenda Hunt: Absolutely. We kind of rushed in and wanted to do something. I think a lot of people are rushing in trying to figure out what it is they should do after they decide they wanna do something. And we've done a few things now and more to come. But before I can say to the board, this is where we need to be in what we all call this space, this space of impact investing or however anybody chooses to frame it up, I think you need to learn about what else is taking place in our community in what I call a community capital stack. I believe those are your terms.

Natalie: Everyone's got their own terms, don't you think? They all mean the same. Essentially identify who the players are, who's got the money, and who needs to deploy it and get off the couch, right?

Brenda Hunt: Yeah. Exactly. One of the pieces as we get into looking at what type of funding, what type of investment, what type of loans, what type of investors you have in a community, that are investing in your community, then perhaps it becomes more clear of what our role could or should be. And in that time and in that span as you're probably doing some things, you're also a catalyst. So when we look at our staff, we can identify what we thought we're probably already missing, and when we have local people of investor quality, they're not investing locally in our community from a business sense of the word.

Natalie: Right. It's that basis start of a philanthropic heart, but you have that investor mentality where this space of impact investing lives in that you are talking about. For our listeners out there, Brenda and her whole entire taskforce in my opinion, in our whole company's opinion, are just courageous thought leaders on all of this. They are out there, not only discussing about what things are going on, but really they're the ones that are actually taking action and really making things happen. So I am excited for you, Brenda, and your task force. You're the doers. You're the doers.

Brenda Hunt: Thanks. I checked in with the executive committee, and they agree also. I think one of the most exciting pieces that we are waiting to see how it turns out right now is a new manufacturing startup, a food business, on the north end of our community. It's in a place that was my grocery store when I first moved to town. It's been gone for a long time. We took a look at what area we might wanna do impact investing there, and then had you folks do the research on that, and then we said, "Not now," and delivered some very constructive messages in a whole bunch of ways.

Then came the calls from out of town from some other folks that had looked at investing, and there's some funds, and looked at putting some money in there. I look very forward to our future discussions of how those funds, our local investment, and some private investors might take this to the next phase. What's most important is that the leverage in this situation has brought some people in the food industry business to the table, which we're not in the food industry business. But we are the eyes and ears of the community. So there's some potential collaborations here. So, we'll just see how that turns out.

Natalie: Right. I think it's very, very exciting. Like I said, you have taken the forefront lead, the pioneering piece of it. I think that's just incredible. So let's get back to the conference. What has been a highlight for you attending this? Has anything really spoken to you that you're really excited to share?

Brenda Hunt: The change that's taking place you know? We have folks at this conference who are also what we would used to call them, grant seekers. Now, they're investees. They're entities, nonprofit and for-profit that we would invest in. That opens up the whole toolkit to not just grants and loans, but other types of investments that you can do through an intermediary or directly. So you can see that and feel that across here. These conferences used to be called Grant Makers and Grant Seekers, and that was never a term that necessarily resonated with me previously. But you can feel the turn. I think the fact that the impact investing sessions are packed, and there's lines out the doors, that and the whole area around healing of racism are the two pieces that I have seen from this conference that really resonate where the interests are a bit overwhelming with people wanting to do something right and good.

Brenda Hunt: One is when those two items about this conference come together, then I think it's very important that we make sure that our intentions of reaching the populations that need to be reached, that need to be brought along, that need to have jobs and equality of life, and the creation of wealth, not wealthy, wealth, for equality of life that we all think that each citizen has the opportunity for and should have, that we make sure we're doing that and that we don't miss that in our work as we go forward.

So, I'm still employed. I'm on my way back there so stay tuned. Battle Creek Community Foundation, best way probably is [email protected]. I will always pick up the phone, 269-962-2181. And I'm always willing to talk, because this is such an emerging area, and I don't have the answers. I've had a lot of things that we've tried. I'm always glad to share what we've tried and what we're doing.

Natalie: Well, that's wonderful. And as you know, pioneering is not comfortable.

Brenda Hunt: No, but it sure is fun.

Natalie: Absolutely.

Brenda Hunt: If we didn't have pioneering, we'd have nothing.

Natalie: Right.

Brenda Hunt: In our country, and in our history, and in our world, and that's I feel the field is right now, too.

Natalie: Right. Well, listeners, it's just be an absolute privilege to be here with Brenda, and I'm so excited that Brenda you've taken the time to share this with us. So thank you so much.

Brenda Hunt: And thank you for how you shape this work and support us. We appreciate it.

Natalie: All right. Thank you.

There is that ‘pioneering’ discussion. It seems to me that the pioneering work of many in the field is rising the tide for all of us. Really great. Natalie and I had a good laugh one day when one of us blurted out ‘pioneering is not comfortable,’ and it stuck, we laughed both at the simplicity and revelation of those few words all at once. But, I digress. Let’s jump back to Natalie as she sits down with Amy Peterson from Rebel Nell.

Amy Peterson: Hi, Natalie. I'm so excited to be here and always love the podcast that you guys are doing.

Natalie: Super fun. Well, how has the conference been going for you this week? I know you've spoken quite a few times and today's the last day. How's it been going for you?

Amy Peterson: This is actually a fascinating conference to be a part of, and I'm really honored to be here and to have the opportunity to speak and share our story and to be in a room full of foundations, to pick their brains and navigate these waters and understand what they're thinking about when they make investments I think has helped me understand how to maybe pitch my business better or to figure out who best to target when asking instead of spinning your wheels and wasting all this time. Really narrowing your focus and figuring out who is the best fit for you, and I think you'll have yourself a lot of time and energy when you do that.

Natalie: That is true. That is one thing that's very unique about this conference where they've pooled together pretty much all the players, in a way, at this conference. It is neat to be in front of everyone and talking and learning about everything in terms of impact investing.

Amy Peterson: Absolutely. The dialogue around impact investing is fascinating, too. What I was incredibly optimistic about is it seems like there's more and more foundations who want to do it and they just can't quite figure out how. But there's enough that are the pioneers in this space that are saying, "Hey, we'll teach you, or we'll find a way to do it." That was, as a social entrepreneur, really encouraging to hear.

Natalie: Right. You're right, you've had experience with impact investing. How has that experience helped and shaped you so far?

Amy Peterson: Yeah. I think we also at Rebel Nell are also early in this space of understanding what it is like to receive impact investing and what it takes to court investors. On more one of those points where you're in the midst of it, you think it's so challenging to do the due diligence and get your ducks in a row. You're like, "God, how many more numbers do they want from me?" In hindsight, that's so valuable as a business owner to understand why that's important. To have companies like Gingras Global who are there to really provide those supportive services and wraparound services to make sure that we are a tight, neat package when we are put in front of investors and knowing and hearing that here at the conference of how they so appreciate that just goes to show, again, how incredible you guys are in what you do.

Natalie: Thank you.

Amy Peterson: Yes, it's been an interesting ride to receive some impact investing, but all the grunt work behind it's been really valuable.

Natalie: Well, yeah, I think that's true. There's a lot of grunt work.

Amy Peterson: A lot of grunt work. A lot.

Natalie: We're not...

Our Common Future conference was held in Detroit, Michigan at the end of October 2017. We have a Part One and a Part Two to give you the top ten.  We will interview several guest speakers that help shape our community. They give us some insight into the work that they do to empower entrepreneurship and Impact Investing.

Welcome to the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. This is Romy, and we have something very special for you on this episode. Our Bonfires team was invited to podcast from the Our Common Futures conference which was held in Detroit at the end of October 2017. I was not able to attend but two of our very experienced colleagues, Jennifer Davis-Papa and Natalie Hazen, caught up with some very high profile attendees and speakers at the conference. They came back with so many great discussions that we had to do a Part 1 and a Part 2 to give you the top ten.

Dan Cardinali: Well, first of all, Independent Sector is a 38-year-old organization that is founded with two very simple principles; that our goal is to bring the sector, the whole sector together. Grant seeking, foundations, corporate foundations, and ... Excuse me. Can I start that again?

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Dan Cardinali: Independent Sector was founded 38 years ago with two very simple purposes; to bring the sector together, sector spanning, so we have grant seeking organizations, nonprofits, and grant-making organizations like philanthropy and corporate foundations.

The goal of this gathering is for the community to come together in a non-transactional way. Not to cut deals, but to collectively take stock in what's going well and what's not, and how we as a sector can come together, catalyze activity, and be part of accelerating social change. That's what Independent Sector does.

And then we learn from that conversation, and we translate that into our public policy work. Primarily in Washington, but increasingly we partner with state organizations to make sure we're aligned with the policies that are really going to strengthen the sector.

Every year we gather, historically every year we gather the sector together in this vital meeting ground, this conference. We realize collaboration is the way of the future. Early on as were designing for this, we said, "Look, who are the strongest sector spanning organizations we can partner with." The Council of Michigan Foundations is one of the strongest state level, regional association working in philanthropy. The Michigan Nonprofit Association is a similar; it's one of the strongest nonprofit association.

It made perfect sense to say, "Hey! Let's put our heads together, and let's design together." And that's what we did. It's been a phenomenal experience.

Natalie: Wow. That's fantastic. I like how you're getting everybody together in the sandbox to play well together, in essence.

Dan Cardinali: Right. Well, the goal I think is playing well together. I think also means struggling to do what we hope happens here. Which is to push each other. Each of us have a different purview. We look across the whole sector nationally. The Council of Michigan Foundations has their lens working with philanthropy here in Michigan. Although, they are also a national player. They've a really great purview, and similarly, the Michigan Nonprofit Association has their purview really on what's going on here in Michigan and understanding the national context.

We all have strong opinions. We're all leaders in our own right. The work we did in terms of really finding the common ground among ourselves, I think then got reflected in the conference. We've been really pleased with the kind of seamlessness with which our teams have worked together, and the design of content. So the meaning that's coming out of this, the learning is actually synthetic for the whole sector. It's not anyone of those federally, or locally, or just philanthropy kind of getting the lion share of the learning.

Dan Cardinali: The nice part is interesting. I think it's more of the respectful part. When you really listen to the other and realize they're coming at this one from a place of deep goodwill and a deep level of experience. You're forced to listen pretty thoroughly. And then each of us, and I have to say our partners were phenomenal in allowing themselves to be stretched and stretching us. What we found is what we learned a fair amount here.

I was just talking with our team that Independent Sector is in this mode right now being a startup in a legacy organization. We after doing a lot of thinking at the nation level, a lot of listening, looking out to the way the world was changing, realized that our responsibility was to kind of called the question for this sector. That we need to change, and we need to evolve and actually pretty quickly.

Our work here in Michigan grounded us in the very practical realities of where the sector is at. We figured out together the pace with which that change needed to take place. It has been an invaluable contribution as we go to L.A. next year. We've rebranded kind of the work it will now be this wonderful gathering for the social sector called Upswell. You can go to the website, upswell.org. It is not the Independent Sector conference anymore. It is the sector's conference. Much like South by Southwest is for the tech industry. Upswell is going to the gathering for this sector.

We learned that in a really important way here in Michigan. It was through that collaboration that helped us really say, "How do we develop a place where those who are in transition can find themselves comfortable and be stretched. Those who are on the front edge of innovation will also be excited and can push further. And those who are skeptical can put a toe in the water and find like-minded folks kind of asking questions and exploring."

Natalie: Wow. That's fantastic. You're grabbing everybody from, no matter where they are in the spectrum really.

Dan Cardinali: That's the goal, right? The sector is huge. People often forget that, right? There are 11 million workers, and then if you put in the number of volunteers in America, one in four Americans, one in four Americans are involved in civil society. And yet we don't have a sense of a collective identity. Part of Upswell's aspiration is, we know that social change is happening all over America and citizens, really just Americans. People who are here in this country who are just deeply passionate about being part of community, are doing great work all the time. We want to capture that energy and share it out. So the notion of Upswell is that we're deeply locally engaged, but nationally relevant. Anybody can find their place in that conversation.

Natalie: Wow. That's fantastic. I like that, but now next year we're in L.A.

Dan Cardinali: We're going to be in L.A. next year. We learned a lot here in Michigan. We sent a team here back in January to live here in Detroit for a month, and to go through a human-centered design program from a local organization here trained by Stanford, and to fan out into the community. That fundamentally changed how we thought about the conference. We're doing that on steroids in L.A.

We've already identified a group of community base leaders who are actually here in Detroit who are learning about what's going well and what isn't. They will become a community of changemakers over the course of the year helping us plan. So place leaders are already learning from what kind of national discourse looks like. And then turning to their home community and saying, "Wow. We have a lot to learn, and we have a lot to teach. And let's make that happen next year."

Natalie: Wow. I love the gathering of the information but yet not just sitting on it. You're actually moving it forward and taking some action on it. That to me is incredible.

Dan Cardinali: That's great. I appreciate you saying that. We believe one of our roles is this notion of recalibrating the tension of how the sector learns. Historically over the last 20 years, a lot of the sector leaders, the big institution, elite coastal institutions, got to kind of say what the important issues were and set the agenda. We think actually communities in dialogue with those elite institutions will create a much clearer and acute understanding of what actually the core issues are. That we then collectively need to catalyze activity and drive change.

Natalie: Right, right. There's always a, making an impact to everywhere that you can go right?

Dan Cardinali: That's exactly. That is exactly right.

Natalie: How do you feel that the conference is going so far, and what has been the highlight or inspiration to you?

Dan Cardinali: Personally, I am kind of over the moon. We were quite nervous going into this last year at our conference. We had about 800 folks come. This year I think we've come close to breaking numbers for our conference. We're well over 1400. It's an example why collaboration is so important. The Council of Michigan Foundations and Michigan Nonprofit Association, not only brought their folks but their folks had a place here and contributed. The traditional folks that we brought were in dialogue with them in a much richer way. I'm very proud and very, very excited that that meaning-making has already begun to take place here. We learned a great deal about that.

The collaboration and the quality of the content ... I was coming back from a dinner last night out in the community with about 30 people. We were at a local nonprofit talking about what is it going to take for our country to become stronger. I've met a diverse group of people. On the bus ride back, a colleague of mine, that I've known for many years said, "You know, I've come to this conference a lot. Most of the time it's been maybe, you know I knew most of what I was going to, and I'd get an occasionally good idea." She said, "I have been challenged and stretched in this conference." So I'm deeply proud that was a collective effort among the sector itself. Stretching itself to grow and learn. It feels to me that is ... If anything Independent Sector can do, we believe in catalyzing leaders into transformative work. It felt to me in that moment; she was saying, "I've feel like I could go back now ready to take on harder stuff."

Natalie: It sounds like it was just a great moment where she was refreshed and renewed in all that she is learning and ready to, as you said, make it into action. Push it forward.

Dan Cardinali: I think that's right. I love to notion of renewal. John Gardner, who founded Independent Sector, said we have to constantly be in renewal as individuals and as institutions. So absolutely I think the conference is the gathering of the tribe, the celebration, the eating and breaking bread together, and hanging out, and laughing. I think the other component of what she said is that I had the assumptions about how I think about creating change stretched and challenged.

And now I don't feel like I am destabilized, but I do feel like I have to go back now and reexamine and bring in what I've learned in the context, and really see if I can push my work forward. To me, this notions of a safe nurturing place to grow is really a tender achievement. And again, that came through collective effort. We couldn't have done it on our own.

Natalie: I think that's fantastic. You're creating this space for everyone to just really be thought, partners.

Dan Cardinali: That's right. That's right. That's exactly.

Natalie: I like that a lot. So in terms of your views for the future of impact investing. How to you see impact investing really tie into your mission, and where do you see impact investing in the local markets really heading?

Dan Cardinali: That's a great question. So I think impact investing is ... What I'm excited about impact investing is that there is a period when it was treated as kind of the be-all and the end-all. It was going to solve this issue of scale. It was going to be market-driven solutions to drive effective practice out there. I actually still believe that's what it can hold. I think there is now a sober and clear-eyed understanding of the strategies that really, I think the work you all are doing is a good example of really the embeddedness it requires in community. The marrying of those with capital looking to use market-driven solutions to drive change. And the kind of ... prior to hopping on the podcast, you use the notion of training Olympic athletes.

I think that has been a missing piece. That there is this incredible commitment to these change makers, who are so poised and so capable. And our assumption is that that passion is sufficient to driven them forward. And yet we know there are really technical supports that will unleash their capability and channel that good sentiment, those values in the market-driven solutions. So I'm very bullish.

I want to call out something about impact investing that I think is going to be a limiting factor unless we partner with a set of institutions that can help, whether it's on the kind of B Corp or the pure social enterprise, or the nonprofit social enterprise. This notion of the tools required for ongoing quality improvement for outcomes. Not for profit, but for outcomes. Creating meaningful social change is actually very, very difficult. There is an emerging body of work. I have to call an example.

Project Evident, which is a startup, is developing a set of strategies for cost-effective tools to help startups or second stage kind of organizations begin to put together what's called strategic evaluation plan. Part of that is understanding how to get the right sets of incomes, but the key to the strategic evaluation plan is understanding the marketplace for results. So that a social enterprise is aiming in a market-driven way. So that its results, when it produces good outcomes for kids and families or whatever it's trying to do. There is actually pickup and payoff at the end.

I think sometimes there is a misalignment between what in fact will ... One, first of all, how do you drive effective outcomes for difficult, intractable problems? And then two, who or how are those going to be picked up and scaled?

Natalie: Right. Now I think you've hit several amazing points. The marketplace, what we're seeing and noticing is that the marketplace when you are creating your business is sometimes not really thought of. Its, yes you want to go do a great thing, have some wonderful impact, but if that marketplace isn't there for your product to help generate your business, you have to go in and create that marketplace. Then that is something we're noticing has been missed as to your point. That you really have to think about that marketplace. Is it already there? Is it waiting for me? Or is it something that I have to go and pioneer on my own?

Dan Cardinali: Yeah. It's an extraordinary important point. Something we're committed to at Independent Sector is working with ... we're working right now with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to look at what we can do as an organization to create a much more rational marketplace for results. So that social enterprises don't have to have dual challenge of both innovating breakthrough strategies to create social good and market, field building or the market making that then scales that work. It's too much at any one time.

We think by virtual of our sector spanning world and public policy capabilities. We have a partnership with an organization results for America which is looking at the public policies that could be put in place that will incentivize government to really reward institutions, organizations for profit and nonprofit that are delivering really material value to society.

Natalie: Excellent. Wow. Thank you so much for your time this morning. I got you up early. You were ready to rock and roll.

Dan Cardinali: I'm ready to rock and roll. I had a lot of coffee this morning. I'm super excited to be here.

Natalie: Well, thank you. So how do our listeners touch base with you at Independent Sector?

Dan Cardinali: Sure. First of all, we would love for folks to engage with us. Your listeners are learning and seeing things that often we are not. So I would really invite them to engage with us. There are a couple ways they can do that. One, our website which is independent sector, and I still misspell Independent so don't fell bad, but it is one-word independentsector.org. And then on our website, there's lot of ways to engage. We publish blogs. We invite folks if they're interested in blogging, let us know. We loved to hear their thoughts.

And then if you go to Upswell.org you can sign up. And we're going to use that platform as a way to engage with folks. And because Upswell is really about kind of the whole shoot and match. We would just invite folks, please sign up, and we will begin to reach out ... and we want their thoughts. Then maybe opportunities for them to curate ideas and present on a national stage.

Natalie: Well, there you have it and to all of our listeners out in L.A., alright. Ball's in your court. Jump on board, right?

Dan Cardinali: Yeah, we look forward to seeing you next year. November 14th through the 16th.

Natalie: All right. Well Dan, thank you so much. I so appreciate it.

Dan Cardinali: Really great.

Thanks, Natalie and Dan! What a great way to kick off the conference and plant seeds for next year in LA. By the time we are done listening to these great guests, we will probably all be booking some tickets.

Joyce: Well, basically, I love this. We've been coming the last couple of years when the Michigan Nonprofit Association converges with the Council of Michigan Foundations. Actually, funny story; can I tell you?

Jennifer: Absolutely.

Joyce: Okay, couple of years ago, we attended and, I'm a talker, so I loved the tie that this gentleman was wearing. Right? It ended up to be the president of the Council of Michigan Foundations. He remembered our little encounter years later when we went to another event in April. He told me, "You're coming to the ..." before I was even on the ... what do you call it? His website. Their website. I was like, "Of course! I can't wait to come and enjoy this!" It's really a good ... yesterday we went to the Michigan Nonprofit Association luncheon. Lots of good information. Was sitting right across from,...

Hear from Jamie and Sean Strasberger talking about their business, Because of a Case. Because of a Case is a mobile phone case design company contributing to our favorite special causes. And, of course, we have a great song at the end by a Detroit artist for your listening pleasure.

Hey Everyone, It’s Romy and I am back with great conversations on the Bonfires of Social Enterprise. Today we have Jamie and Sean Strasberger talking about their business, Because of a Case. And, of course, we have a great song at the end by a Detroit artist for your listening pleasure. Let’s kick it off here with a fun fuel from Natalie Hazen; she always comes up with the best fun fuels!

Romy: Let's help our listeners understand what your business is and does.

Jamie S: Okay. We're a phone case company, and for every case we sell, we donate a portion to different charities. We have a phone case that we donate a portion to the Sea Turtle Conservancy, and it has sea turtles on it, metallic gold foil. We have all different designs that coordinate with different charities.

Sean S: For sure, so another organization, the Anxiety ... Association ... What?

Jamie S: Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Sean S: Anxiety and Depression. Do that one. We have a lot of animal causes. We have a lot of human causes. We just cover a lot of different bases, and we donate anywhere from 10% of net profits all the way up to 75% for a couple of our causes.

Romy: Is the case designed for that particular cause? Am I saying that right?

Jamie S: Yeah. Some of them will have a design that we want to use, with a charity in mind. Then we contact the charity after we have the design, and show them what we're thinking. Other charities have helped us design it using their colors or their logo, and we use some of those graphics in mind when we design them for the different charities.

Romy: How do you get the charities to participate? What's been your method of solicitation? I don't feel like that's the right word, that's my geeky finance person coming out.

Jamie S: Yeah.

Sean S: It's been interesting, just because I think before we started the company, we had this idea, "Oh, we're going to help people," and that was the social aspect of it where we really wanted to bring on as many organizations, with as many causes that we were passionate about, and our followers and customer base was passionate about.

We found that there's, for some of these charities, there's a lot of hoops to jump through to get them on board. You have to have a certain amount of minimum sales. There's just, depending on the charity, they're not ... Not every charity's wiling to have you on board. They need to make sure you're a legitimate company. They don't just take anybody on, which I guess I think we found kind of surprising at first, just because like, "Hey, you know, we're willing to help everybody."

Jamie S: At the beginning, we're like, "We want to donate. Can somebody let us donate to your charity." But it is about just approaching them, and especially in the beginning, we approached a lot of charities. Some of them were really open to us, and really excited about working together. Some of them, yeah, we had to have a minimum sales. So it was just about making sure we approached enough charities to get enough on our site, and enough to coordinate with our different phone cases.

Sean S: I think part of that is just because there's so many organizations out there that are similar in a sense that they're donating a portion of sales. That was one of the unique niches for us, where we found a hole, was that ... Like for T-shirt companies for instance, there's so many social enterprises that were T-shirt companies, where they donate a portion of sales. But with phone cases, when we started, and still at this point, there's not really, there wasn't a leader. So we kind of carved our niche there, and I think we're able to get more charities and organizations on board, because we're the go to charity phone case company.

Romy: Really exciting.

Jamie S: Yeah, and we have had a couple approach us since we've gotten a bit bigger. Sometimes we'll go through emails and have some charities that now we have to look into and see if we want to work with them. So that's pretty cool too.

Sean S: At least, in the beginning, I know, it was just as hard to get charities on board as it was to find social influencers or celebrities on board, like it was ... Jamie had to work her tail off to prove our worth to them a lot of the time.

Romy: So they were almost vetting you as a vendor, even though part of the proceeds were going to go back.

Jamie S: Yeah. They just wanted to make sure that we were legitimate. We were going to donate to them. They wanted to make sure that we were going to be good to work with, and there was a lot of factors in some of them. Some of them were easier, though, to get.

Romy: Yeah.

Sean S: Absolutely.

Romy: It is interesting. You need people to start to buy ... You got the chicken and egg thing going there. You know. I really want to help you and help each other.

Jamie S: That's exactly it.

Romy: Let's go back and tell, maybe the story about what inspired you to get started, or what was the light bulb moment.

Sean S: That goes back to Jamie, because she got her degree in teaching, but I think it was back in 2008, 2009, where the economy wasn't doing as well. So she couldn't find a teaching job. So she had to find something else to do. That's what started it.

Jamie S: Yeah, so I was looking for different things to do. I was substitute teaching, but it wasn't really bringing in enough money. It was hard to get even subbing positions at the time, so I was really just looking for anything I could do. I had a job where I was working ... I got a job I found at, in a department store working at a cosmetics counter. I really liked doing that, and I've always liked makeup and hair. So I started a YouTube channel, and I thought I could play off on this. I built up my audience, and I have about 60,000 subscribers on my channel.

Romy: Oh, my goodness.

Jamie S: I was reviewing all kinds of different products and makeup and hair and food, and just anything.

Sean S: Stuff on Shark Tank. As seen on TV. All that sort of stuff.

Jamie S: Yeah. My channel name is Reviews by Jamie, if anyone wanted to check it out. But I do all kinds of reviews.

Me and Sean were always talking about, we need to come out with a product that my audience would really like, because I knew my audience really well, and they're very loyal, and they're always commenting, and they're so sweet.

Sean S: I think the first thing we thought of was, we were thinking about some sort of a jam, as a play off the Jamie Jammers.

Jamie S: My name.

Sean S: We threw that around for a little bit. We threw all sorts of stuff around.

Jamie S: Yeah, which would still be fun to do, but I really noticed that a lot of people were interested in phone cases. So we thought, "Oh this could be fun." I love designing things and I have a good eye for what's trending. I think we could come up with some great designs. We actually sat on that for a couple of years, just going back and forth. Should we start? Should we not? And then-

Sean S: We went through this one company where you could actually buy all the equipment to make your own phone cases. That was kind of like a big leap for us, because we were always the type of people who never had a late credit card bill. Everything was like always very in order. We kind of had to take a little credit out to get that ... All right, let's leap, and little did we know, that was not even close to how far ...

Jamie S: It was nothing compared to what we've spent now. It was a $3,000 machine.

Sean S: Yeah, at the time it felt like, holy moly, we were really taking a big risk here. So we bought this crazy machine.

Jamie S: But we're not the type that can use something like that and make it work. You had, there was a lot of steps involved, and we didn't make one phone case that looked good. So I was like, "This isn't going to work. We can't sell these." I'm a perfectionist too, so there would be little flaws on the printing.

Sean S: You literally, you printed out the designs on this special printer, and then you'd use this heat press, which we put in the basement, which yeah, and then you heated it on in the toaster oven, and it was...

Jamie S: You had to have special gloves for it, and I was like, "Sean, you can't use this. You're going to burn yourself."

Sean S: Yeah, I'm a little clumsy when it comes to that kind of ... yeah.

Jamie S: So we're like, we need ... We'll think of a different way for it. We really started talking, "Okay, we could do something more with this." I was having a lot more ideas for designs. Then we had the idea, after talking about donating a portion of every sale, and particularly to mental health, because I've struggled with anxiety, just generalized anxiety since I was a kid. So I thought this would be really cool, because we thought of a really good slogan, and it was, "Find your happy case," instead of, "Find your happy place."

Romy: Oh, I like that.

Sean S: When it started, it was actually everything was going towards helping mental health. We found this great organization, Minding your Mind, which we still work with a little bit, where they actually do mindfulness classes in elementary and middle, high schools. They do more workshops and trainings around the country to bring more awareness. [crosstalk 00:08:36]

Jamie S: All these things I wish I would've had just growing up. So it's really cool, and we still work with an ADAA, but then we started having customers who were requesting different causes. So we thought, could we add more? Could we make it different? So we changed our slogan, and now it's, "Protect your phone. Protect the world."

Romy: Ah, I like that.

Sean S: Registered trademark.

Jamie S: Yeah.

Romy: Registered trademark. Very nice. Well, I love that. So you abandoned the idea of doing the equipment. I guess I'd call that manufacturing it yourself.

Jamie S: We're not DIY people at all.

Sean S: No. Not with anything. We're not the Pinterest [inaudible 00:09:19]. With cooking maybe, but other than that ...

Jamie S: Yeah.

Romy: But you do have this idea of design, which is great. An eye of what ...

Jamie S: Yeah. I think I'm pretty good at finding what, and knowing what people want to see, because it's really what I want to see too. I'm really drawn to all the trendy things, and I'm pretty on top of it too, and I'll have some ideas for different designs, and then we'll see other companies do them a little bit after. We're like, "Oh, I think we were on the right track with that."

Sean S: Much bigger companies, where it's frustrating, and we're like, we just had that idea a week ago.

Jamie S: Yeah, things we didn't, we weren't able to come out with, that we see other companies do.

Sean S: I think the funny thing too, is just like looking back to when we had that machine, which we somehow were able to get it right up on Craigslist. I'm still ... Whoever's using that, I hope it's going well-

Sean: ... Get it right up on Craigslist. Whoever's using that, I hope it's going well for them.

Jamie: I warned them too, I was very straightforward. I said, "It's very hard to use, I don't want you to burn yourself. We had a hard time making the cases", but they still wanted it.

Sean: They did.

Romy: Thank goodness there's buyers out for all kinds of stuff in the world that we live in, this time in history.

Jamie: There's always somebody who wants something you're selling.

Romy: Anyways, you decided not to be DYIers. How did you discover the steps to do it differently then?

Sean: The funny thing about that is I think we've slowly discovered, and we had a little experience because right after college we both started a videography company, where we would do weddings and bar mitzvahs. I think that gave us a lot of insight, and actually we're doing that again now. We just recently started doing it again after a little bit.

I think that really gave us a lot of insight into knowing what you can do and what you can't do. For us, Jamie initially, just because she's got an artistic...